Observing the world at the moment is like watching a multi-car motorway pile up. It all seems to happen so slowly – but it’s inevitable that when the brakes are applied by some and directions changed by others that a big crash will happen.

My background is in print media and photography. I’ve written in the “project and tales” section of the site about some of my experiences at the cutting edge of digital photography in the early 90s. Less than 20 years on, I’ve just witnessed the inevitable crash of a big juggernaut as Kodak filed for bankruptcy.

Everyone could see it coming. No matter how brakes were applied, a new course steered or the attempts to accelerate away from danger – it crashed.

Much discussion has been had about the demise of newspapers. The focus has been on the outdated business models – and how only on-line paywalls can hope to sustain excellent journalism. The crashes have already started to occur in the US regional newspapers – and was well illustrated in the excellent docufilm – “Page One – Inside The New York Times”. In the UK, there has yet to be a major crash. Although many would connect the closure of the News of the World as much with economics as Murdoch’s empire trying to distance itself from phone hacking.

The bigger crash I can see is the inevitable demise of the whole print industry. It’s a supertanker powering towards a reef. If I’d have said this 5 years ago, you would have thought I was mad. But now, it seems to add up. Will the printing presses be running in 10 years time? I don’t think so – except as a “side show” like black and white photography darkrooms.

I used one of the first digital cameras in 1994 at the Lillehammer Olympics. I was part of a select few to use these prototype models at the games. At that Olympics, professional photographers alone shot 700,000 rolls of film. The images were carefully selected – and a number of them used in newspapers, magazines and books. In the 18 years since that first breakthrough, more pictures are used because of so many digital platforms being available. There will be 5-20 pictures shown on newspaper websites to back up the 1-2 pictures used in print. No mainstream photography is created using film – and printing is limited to when a picture needs framing at home. I’ve seen it happen in one great industry – and the printing presses invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century are next on the crash list.

I am typing this sitting on a train heading through Switzerland. Around me, I cannot see a newspaper – but plenty of people tapping and viewing content on iPhones and Androids. I’ve just been through the airport – and Kindles/iPads outnumbered book readers (and it’s early days for these reading devices). I still love reading a book in print. I’ll never stop loving it (much like the desire to process a film, put the negative in the enlarger and create a print through trays of chemicals). All that nostalgia will pass though, and I am sure the screen will win.

There is no doubt that Steve Jobs led the revolution on devices to consume content. However, when we look back in history – the real destroyer of Gutenberg’s legacy will be seen as Mark Zuckerberg. He brought hundreds of millions of people from around the world to their screens to engage with friends and consume content on Facebook. Make no mistake, many media companies engage on-line – but Zuckerberg’s Facebook has made screen consumption – at the desk or on the move – mainstream.

I had a brief email exchange with Jon Ferrara of Nimble the other day. He’s quite a visionary. I’d forwarded an article from Chris Brogan saying to get things done it helps to write out 3×5 index cards and put on your desk. Jon’s view was that this was “too old school”. I think he’s right – although I don’t know if I can ever give up scribbling my to-do list and musings in my Moleskin notebook (I have tried many, many to-do list software solutions). Jon’s company, Nimble, is redefining how individuals do business – and it’s on-screen.

Last week, I went to a board meeting at home in Bath. There were nearly 50 pages to print – so I took my iPad with PDFs loaded. It worked well, I “saved a tree” – and got nearer than I’ve ever been to the old ideal of the “paperless office”. I also read that at this year’s meeting of GE’s top executives, presentation materials will be available only via iPads.

I’m sure those of my age and older have heard these arguments before. It happened when television came on the scene. Newspapers were definitely going to die.

It’s different this time. This new wave will not just take out newspapers in their printed format – it will leave in its wake bookshops, magazine stands, printing presses, ink makers and paper suppliers. I am sure Gutenberg would be delighted. His solution was built for no other purpose than to spread “the word”. Gutenberg was the 20th Century’s greatest inventor – this millennium has started with Mark Zuckerberg in pole position. Like it or not (and there are some elements I certainly don’t like) Zuckerberg is spreading the word (and it’s not with ink on paper). There’s a new “Berg” on the block!

Bath Digital Festival is hosting a debate “Digital has killed the print industry and infantilised us in the process” at The Pump Rooms on Monday 19th March at 8pm. Tickets are £8. For more information click here…

I’ve been following the news about the various anti-capitalist protests around the world. We’ve even had one sprout up in the middle of Queen Square in Bath!

It got me thinking – that maybe we should be careful about how to use the terms capital, capitalism and capitalist. Capital isn’t just money! As you will know if you’ve read my blog before, I believe that your most valuable asset is your Personal Network. It’s much more valuable than money in the bank – conventional “financial” capital.

These days, our social media presence and our network of contacts is referred to as our “social capital”. It’s a good term – and gets us to think of this network as an asset (much like our savings, pensions, etc). I think it’s important that we continue the analogy – and learn from the “financial” capitalists to protect, nurture and grow our social assets.

All my reading leads me to the conclusion that there is a significant power change going on in the world. My feeling is that the disasters in the world economy shields one of the biggest changes – and that is the empowerment of the individual. The growth of our social network, the change in the dynamics of the workplace and our dissatisfaction with the old system of work/get paid/consume is leading us on a new path.

We now have the tools as individuals to create and grow significant Social Capital. In time, this will mean that we will chose where we want to work – and how we want to work. We will be courted by businesses who can meet OUR requirements – and we will need to be convinced that a business matches OUR personal needs. The shoe is moving to the other foot.

I did a google search for the term “social capitalist”. There are a wide range of definitions. For example, Wikipedia says that it’s an economic theory around macro-economics and philosophy (not what I am proposing).

Fast Company appeared to give awards to Social Capitalists up until recently. Their Social Capitalists are “Social Entrepreneurs who are changing the world”. I like those too – but it’s not what I am talking about.

My idea of Social Capitalists is you and me. People who believe in their network, want to make connections, give value to those around them and cherish relationships as their most important asset.

We need to be careful with our Social Capital. I’ve written before about my concern about social networks – especially Facebook. They act in effect as our bankers, places where our social capital is held side by side with that of others. We need to learn from the banking crisis that we should be very careful where we put our trust – and check if our social capital is safe.

Every financial adviser will tell you that it is most important to protect your capital. We should do the same with our Social Capital. We should not allow our relationships to erode. We need to nurture and keep our currency.

My idea of Social Capitalism offers a middle ground between our current financially driven world – and the bartering of the past. This combined with our craft and skills will help us make our way in the world – finding work that excites us and the people who give us energy. Becoming Social Capitalists is at the core of this opportunity to leverage and grow.

Power to the people – and viva Social Capitalists!

This is the first blog post at my new home of philobrien.com. Hello to former readers of the Personal Network blog – and welcome to new readers. I hope to cover a wider range of topics here. I am especially keen to comment on what is happening in the worlds of old, new and social media. Other issues on the agenda will be “future work”, “visual communication” – and, of course, personal networks.

The recent changes to Facebook have really got me thinking again about their role in our world. You might have read previous blog posts Is Facebook the “McDonalds” of your Personal Network? and LinkedIn – Love it or cancel it!? Facebook – don’t know what to do with it.

I was brought up a Catholic in Liverpool. Weekly trips to church – and lots of talk about Souls and The Devil (then lapsed at 18 and never went back!). In recent times, I have read and watched to try to understand how the world got in to such a financial crisis. Part of my “education” on the subject of the financial crisis has been watching the excellent film “Inside Job”. It is a compelling (and deeply worrying) story of how deregulation and “toxic instruments” like Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) were used to bundle up sub-prime mortgages. I recommend you watch the film.

Anyway, back to Facebook. Where do they fit in with these trains of thought? Well, I think we are happily trading chunks of our social capital for the free services that Facebook (and others) offer. It’s a bit like being invited in to the Casinos at Las Vegas – those free drinks are tempting us to make poor judgements. You might look at Facebook (here you should include in your thinking Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, et al) and consider their financial model. They are not making money (or significant money) – but are worth billions. Why is that?

Well, my feeling is that they are taking chunks of our social capital, bundling that together in batches of 10 million users – and then setting a share price for these bundles. Their balance sheet is our aggregated social capital.

More individuals “loaning to FB” their social capital = more value

More individuals “swapping” their social capital within FB = even more value.

I could write a long article about this – but why not write your own and play this search and replace game?

Social Capital = Soul
Facebook = The Devil
FB Stock = Toxic Social Capital

In the last year, I have watched the revolutions that have taken place around the world. Many have been attributed to the social media generation using Twitter and Facebook. It’s been positive to see so many people standing firm against corrupt governments and taking back their countries. It has needed bravery and determination.

Many commentators now talk about Facebook in comparison to countries. Facebook’s own stats today tell me they have 800 million active users world-wide. In July nearly 50% of the US population where on Facebook – I suspect that is over 50% by now. So, if Facebook is the size of a country (in fact bigger than most) – what sort of revolution might take place? It would be an easy revolution – little bravery, no bloodshed. I’m intrigued to see if Facebook implodes. Will historians look back and ask “what where they thinking?”

Last week, I went to a play at the Theatre Royal in Bath called “Earthquakes in London”. It was a play about the impending doom caused by our generation not looking after the planet. It talked about a planet that would always survive – but could only cope with one billion humans, not the seven billion we are heading towards. There was a line where the actors talked about desperate Africans deciding they could take no more and walking to Europe en masse. Apocalyptic stuff! The same day, I had listened to reports that it is 75 years ago since the Jarrow March. Back in 1936 this was a march by 200 desperately poor, unemployed people from the north east of England to London. They covered 300 miles – and held a banner calling it the Jarrow Crusade.

We live in interesting (and unstable) times. We can learn from recent history that if things seem too good – they probably are. The financial crisis has shown us this – and we might think of applying this learning to how we consider our relationship with Facebook. On the bigger picture – don’t underestimate the power of large groups of people with a cause. The Jarrow Crusaders showed it 75 years ago – and the revolutions around the world this year have echoed the same. Where next? Is revolution coming on-line?

One of our family’s treats each year is to attend concerts at the Montreux Jazz Festival. We have been doing this for the last 4 festivals – seeing acts ranging from Adele to Status Quo to Mumford & Sons to Mark Ronson to Alicia Keys. Our children started doing this when they were 9 & 10 – and we always buy tickets to stand to get to the front and enjoy the music.

This year, our treat was to watch Sting at the Stravinski Auditorium. Standing tickets were behind about 12 rows of seats – and getting there early to queue was important. We took some friends and their children – and commenced our queuing at 5:30 – with doors opening at 7pm. We got 4th place in the queue! When the barriers came down, we rushed up the stairs to find the auditorium doors closed – and 35 minutes later we were finally let in to bag our place. We found a nice space up against the barrier and next to a TV camera stand with a clear view for the youngsters in the party (ranging from 12-16 years).

What intrigued me is the dynamic of trying to keep your “personal space” in these situations. It’s fun standing up and being able to move around (I can’t call it dancing!!). However, there is a tension about keeping your space and not letting people push in or get too close. We spotted a couple of young girls about 4 layers back (they were 8 & 9 years old attending their first concert). Their view was totally blocked by our party – so we negotiated with those around us to budge up and their mum and dad were able to send them to the front to enjoy! That was the nice bit… The girls headed off to bed at the interval – and then the spaces changed … and suddenly there was an issue! My friend, Sally, got “monstered” from behind by a couple. Firstly, the man got too close to Sally – then the lady insisted on pushing her handbag into her back (and that of a Swiss lady next to her). Eventually, a highly vocal row broke out (as Sting was performing one of his quiet numbers). It was all very tense and uncomfortable. As a solution, I swapped places with Sally … and the lady got bored with poking me in the back with her handbag after another couple of numbers.

We are so used to having our space – and the nicer the life we lead, the less we like the crush of the Tube trains and the chaos of the Easyjet airline queues. Recently, Sir Terence Conran, one of Britain’s best loved designers, said: “…space is undoubtedly going to be the greatest luxury of the 21st century.” He’s definitely right…

I’m just reading a book called “Tales from Facebook” by Daniel Miller. It was recommended to my by my Twitter friend @SadGrimm – and is proving to be a cracking read with a “short story” style helping to present the research. The Facebook focussed research is very relevant to the real-life scenario above. Here is a brief excerpt:-

As we build our Personal Networks in real life – or online with social media networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and “new kid on the block” Google+ – we will continue to juggle (and make compromises on) closeness and privacy.

Don’t worry – it’s not quite how it sounds. I’m not joining those newspaper headlines about Facebook fuelling divorce. However, I am meeting some very interesting people on-line – and then meeting up in the “real world”.

I had breakfast with one of them this morning. Rob Geraghty is an entrepreneur – involved in many projects – including his presentation training company the Wow Factor. Rob got in touch with me (via LinkedIn) after stumbling across my blog – and in particular liking the idea of “funemployment”.

We met for breakfast this morning – and one of our similarities was how baffled our wives are by this concept of people connecting via the web and meeting up. There is always a raised eyebrow when the response to “what are you doing today” is “I’m having a coffee with a man I met on the internet.” It does seem strange…

However, I’ve been thinking about it – and actually, it’s one of the brilliant opportunities thrown up by social media. In the past you would try and find like-minded people by traveling to conferences, speaking to lots of people with vaguely similar interests – and occasionally finding someone worth connecting with.

In our new world, you can easily find like minded people. You can do the research and understand what makes the person tick – and get to a stage of comfort way before you decide to write that first introductory message to initiate a connection.

I read today about Google’s new tool for “on-line reputation management”. It’s called “Me on the Web” – and can be found in your Google Dashboard. Google and many others recognise that our on-line presentation will be increasingly important as we build our Personal Networks of the future. I don’t believe this to be just a marketing exercise – it’s a way of reflecting on-line your values, interests and character.

Rob has added to my list of men met on the internet. Others include:-

Chris Redmond is an inspirational leader – and thought provoking blogger. (Attended one of his charity fund raising events in Reading.)

Jordi Robert-Ribes is a internationally respected speaker on networks. (Met for lunch in London when he was over from his home in Andorra)

Benjamin Wirtz is a young entrepreneur creating applications to help people manage their networks. (met for coffee in London)

Anyway, Rob was good fun to be around – a very similar connector. Within a week of his email – and before we met in person – we’d made a connection that should be of benefit to the Cricket charity that I’m involved in. Today, we worked through a few ideas that might be mutually beneficial – and our on-line “research” of each other before this meeting has already accelerated the level of connection and trust.

Connecting via the web is undoubtedly the most efficient way to meet like-minded people. I will be continuing to meet men on the internet – and I do recommend you give it a try!

I’ve been meaning to write a blog post about the research undertaken in the Netherlands which concluded that most people replace half of their friends every 7 years. It was brought to my attention by a couple of on-line friends – Jordi Robert-Ribes and Ben Wirtz – who both happened to raise it when we met up in the real-world for the first time. Maybe they were both hinting there was only a 50:50 chance we would still be in contact in 7 years … or less!

The research came out of a project in Holland called “Where friends are made. Context, Contacts, Consequences,” and was set up by Beate Völker. Beate doesn’t seem that keen on connecting – she has one of those Twitter accounts with protected Tweets! The actual research was run by Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst of Utrecht University (not on Twitter at all!). It always baffles me when Sociologists/Anthropolgies/academics don’t “come out to play” in the world of social media.

Mollenhorst conducted a survey of 1,007 people aged from 18 to 65. He contacted them twice – with a 7 year gap in between. From the original group, 604 people answered on both occasions. The survey contained questions such as: Who do you talk with, regarding personal issues? Who helps you with DIY in your home? Who do you pop by to see? Where did you get to know that person? And where do you meet that person now?

The results showed that personal network sizes seemed to remained stable, but that many members of the network were new. About 30 percent of discussion partners and practical helpers had the same position in a typical person’s Personal Network seven years later. The big finding was that only 48 percent of the original contacts were still part of the network.

I have thought for a while that this was interesting research – and it became more relevant after I saw the video of a lady – Suzy (also from the Netherlands) – making a permanent record of her 152 Facebook Friends in the form of a tattoo!

Currently the video has been watched by over 300,000 people. It’s not getting as many likes as dislikes – as I write the score is 511 likes to 1,018 dislikes. Let’s hope that there are not too many of her friends in the disklikes.

Well, Suzy is on-target with the work of Robin Dunbar. She’s bang on with 152 friends and his Dunbar Number of 150. However, she might have also given some thought to the work of her fellow Netherlander Gerald Mollenhorst. She’s in for a lot more than a 7 year itch!

[UPDATE – Tattoo story was a hoax (a good one at that) – changing 50% of friends every 7 years was not! More at CBS News]

I’m pleased to welcome an “on-line” friend, Joel D Canfield, to the Personal Network Blog. He’s agreed to be my first “Guest Blogger”!

The clearest communication happens face to face, eye to eye. One purpose of my family’s nomadism is to meet eye to eye people we’ve previously known only over the internet. Some few we’ve spoken to by telephone but that’s a tiny portion of the people and conversations.

When it comes to technology and relationships, you know the stereotype: the asocial geek sitting in his basement in the glow of a computer screen, with the misguided belief that those avatars and screen names he interacts with are real relationships. That stereotype, accurate as it may be, doesn’t render technology meaningless in developing and maintaining the strong ties of real relationships.

Best Beloved and I use technology to maintain family connections and our real-life friendships from before we began our nomad adventure. These days, though, we’re meeting people we would never have known without technology’s ability to introduce us to real friends all over the earth. (We may even be meeting Phil this summer!) As we move on, technology allows us to maintain, develop, strengthen those ties.

The nearly two dozen online friends we’ve met have yielded precious few surprises in real life. They have all been more or less what we expected. Strong ties created through technology aren’t less valuable or real than those created in “real life”, they just don’t include the option to shake hands or hug. (I’m a hugger.)

I’ll take a hand-written letter over an email or Facebook post any day. There is nothing in the world like sharing a meal with someone to let me get to know them and them to know me. In a perfect world, those are the ways I would foster strong ties in my relationships. Until that perfect world, technology will continue to be a useful tool in fostering friendship’s strong ties.

Bio:
Though he pays his bills as a business author, writing and business coach, and web developer, Joel D Canfield is first and foremost a philosopher who believes that finding why makes what and how become clear. Get to know him at http://FindingWhy.com.

I seem to have spent all my free time in the last few weeks pouring through boxes of photos. These aren’t from my career as a professional photographer – they are my personal “snaps” and crates full of family photographs stored by my father up until he passed away a few years ago. We are on the move to a new home in Bath – and the storage space of our new house is greatly reduced compared to the stable block bursting with “stuff” at our current abode. I’m a hoarder!

Photographs are wonderful things. They stir memories. They promote a human interaction in the taking and the sharing. They always have done and always will. In modern social media there has been no change. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg said of the social elements of FB Photos:

Photos are Facebook’s lifeblood.

From these boxes, I pulled out a bundle of holiday snaps this week. Four packets of pictures from my first foreign holiday to Portugal in the late 80s – nearly 25 years ago. I went with a couple of friends (who happened to be girls). We had a great time, I got painfully sunburned, my bed got infested with ants – it was fun.

However, what the hell was I wearing? Did people really sell clothes like that in those days – and why was I the fool buying them? Who are those people in the pictures we shared beers with?

Well, I’ve been able to “weed history” to my own recollection. There are 5 pictures saved – they are highlights I can use to remember. The rest of the packs (including the shocking images you can vaguely see in the thumbnail image here) are heading for the bonfire. The saved images are going in my “Personal Box” where I store my keepsakes. Mine!

How will a Facebook generation cope with this “baggage”? These 4 packs of images, today would be uploaded to FB unedited – and remain there for all to see 25 years later. They’d undoubtedly be shared with virtually everyone I’d had a beer with on the holiday and “friended” on Facebook. Can anyone explain to me how that “baggage” will work for Generation Y? Will FB let you weed and put on the bonfire by then?

One of my favourite songs is by The Beatles – “In My Life”. Its chorus goes:

Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them

Everyone does that. Recollects, smiles, cries – with affection. It’s personal. My life is richer for the people and the experiences – but the record is in my minds eye with photographs aiding that recollection. How does that work in the deeply shared and connected world of Facebook?

STOP PRESS

I was just about to press the “publish” button …. and …. discovered a brand new iPhone App called “The Last Night Never Happened“.

As they say these days “we’ve got an app for that!” Not quite the answer – but people are starting to realise the issue.

As I continue to research the dynamics of Personal Networks – I see a real issue looming of “friendship overload”.

My last blog post included a quote from Identifii’s founder Usman Sheikh:

Graduates have typically 6-800 friends on Facebook – it’s a new personal asset that this generation just takes for granted. It’s ‘just there!’. These links through their lifetime will be the links that will create partnerships, job offers and other opportunities.

That’s a big number for a 20 year old to carry along for life!

I then read the Leader Column in a very traditional British magazine, “Country Life” – entitled “With friends like these…”. One of the key quotes in the article was:

This should be a boom time for friendship. Once, geographical separation and the divergence of life’s path would make friendships difficult to continue. Now, Facebook means that an act of conscious will is required to lose touch…

Country Life’s particular angle was about how you get to know who your REAL friends are when the going gets tough. The focus of the article was on the troubles of Prince Andrew, Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi. Here’s another line from the article:

… few things are more revealing of the moral character of an individual that his or her attitude towards friends who are going through a bad patch.

Wow – young people are going to have to have bucket loads of “moral character” to support the number of FB friends they have!

This brought me back to a topic discussed a few months ago in a blog post about INSEAD professor Martin Gargiulo. Here’s a brief exert.

…. he compares the reciprocal relationship between people in the network to electrical copper wires. Firstly, the thicker the copper wire – the more energy in the relationship. He goes on to use the same analogy to say that these cables do not rot – and can be easily reactivated. It’s a good way to consider those weak ties (and often close relationships) where our communication is infrequent.

I was greatly amused by how he describes that relationships have to be pro-actively broken. He says that “you must murder” a relationship to really break it! The relationship – not the person…

I am sure we can all think of many friends who we have lost touch with through “natural wastage”. Personally, I think that works well – and it’s often a “toss of a coin” on meeting again whether my reaction is either “Why, oh why did I lose touch with that person – they are great” or “Ah, it’s flooding back to me why I lost touch!”.

I think that all these hundreds and thousand of “copper wires”/friendships staying connected – and with energy flowing through Facebook – this can only lead to “Friendship Overload”. What do you think? Please comment below or take part in the poll on LinkedIn.

In my exploration of Personal Networks, I’ve come to the conclusion that the process starts with a fair degree of self awareness. I’ve always been a “self help” addict – and many years ago I became interested in psychometric testing after undertaking a Myers-Briggs MBTI test. Since then, I have worked with a business psychologist in a number of ventures – and it’s added terrific value. Interestingly, the most pleasing thing with psychometric testing is the synergy between the individual gaining self awareness, the team involved having a shared “score” to communicate around – and the organisation seeing the economic benefit of building long lasting teams with complimentary skill sets.

I recently stumbled upon a start up called Identifii, based in Singapore. It’s an interesting business that focusses on a young audience to make sure they start on the right career path. The key to this is helping with self awareness through psychometric testing.

I chatted with Identifii’s founder Usman Sheikh about his new business. First off, he gave me his vision for Identifii: “The right people in the right jobs results in a better world.” That’s a big idea – I like that!

Usman has recognised an issue – and wants to solve it. “The primary problem we aim to solve is one of incorrect career path selection. I graduated from college nearly 5 years ago and when I catch up with old friends, I estimate that over 70% of them, are not entirely happy with what they do on a daily basis. However, they are at a point in their lives, where change has become an extremely difficult option and the decision to ‘just to live with it’, is how they resolve the issue. Many of them selected career paths at graduation, paths which were not always suited for who they were, but rather paths chosen and based upon other factors, such as employer brand or monetary compensation.”

Identifii is focussed on Gen Y – the 16-25 year old college graduate, Facebook generation. In fact, after applying to be part of their Alpha test group, the only way to log-in to the system is via Facebook. So I dusted by FB ID off (an old git like me only uses it to keep an eye on the kids) – and gave the service a try. Five minutes and 20 questions later, I had my psychometric test done – and guess what, they had got me 100% right. See the analysis below!

I’ve been called many things in my life – but I think that I like “Colourful Storyteller” the best! From Identifii’s dashboard, I found out that famous people of my “type” – ENFP (Extrovert/iNtuitive/Feeling/Perceiving) – include Charles Dickens, Robin Williams, Sandra Bullock & Meg Ryan. Cool!! Top three career paths were Journalism, Public Relations and Entrepreneurship. I shared the comments with a couple of friends – and they chuckled at the weaknesses … “Lack of discipline in following through on important detail”, “propensity to focus on what’s achievable rather than what’s doable” and “tendency to become bored or side tracked after creative process is done”. How they laughed – got me in one!

I thought back to when I was leaving school and had a difficult time choosing between a career as a civil engineer, social worker or photo-journalist. Luckily, back then I somehow selected the right career path – with Identifii it would have been so much easier!

I asked Usman why he had created Identifii. “I was at University finishing my Economics degree and thought that I would become an investment banker. Luckily, I did an internship before I graduated and realised it was not for me. I went off to Cambridge University (England) and got my qualification as a certified psychometric consultant. It let me explore how people made choices.”

“I then build a relationship with Psytech – a vendor of psychometric tests – and in 2007 they granted me a license for their products in Pakistan. One of the opportunities I had in Pakistan was to work with 200 graduating MBA students. These graduates felt destined to work at the big multi-national companies (MNCs) like Unilever, P&G, Standard Chartered, etc. I understood the attraction of the large brand and the paycheck – but realised that for 60/65% this was not a good long-term fit.”

Usman could see the opportunity – but felt it was not the time to pursue. He headed back to Singapore and worked with friends developing Hatch Media in to the leading Youth Marketing Agency in the country. He discovered a lot about the 16-25 demographic from his experience there – the Generation Y.

When he saw the exponential growth in Facebook in 2009-10, Usman realised that the time was right to bring Identifii to market. He knew his idea needed major distribution – and FB was the channel.

As with all start-ups, it’s not been plain sailing. He explained how joining the Founders Institute in Singapore was a turning point. He made connections, found mentors to help refine his ideas – and was able to secure the funding needed to start things rolling.

Usman’s perception of Singapore, South East Asia and the surrounding areas was compelling listening for me. “LinkedIn awareness in Singapore with the youth audience is close to 0%. People here are still choosing careers based on traditional pressures like parents wishes, brands and the paycheck size. I believe that there is an opportunity for SMEs (Small & Medium sized Enterprises) to stop the traditional flow of talent to MNCs. We aim with Identifii to job match young talent with more satisfying jobs in the SME sector.”

I was surprised that the Identifii platform only allows access via a Facebook log-in. Usman explained: “We chose Facebook as a way to filter who came in to the site. LinkedIn also has very little take up in the region. However, in the future we will offer a straight forward log-in process and customer validation with Twitter and LinkedIn.”

Usman has a very intuitive feel of the youth audience. “Graduates have typically 6-800 friends on Facebook – it’s a new personal asset that this generation just takes for granted. It’s ‘just there!’. These links through their lifetime will be the links that will create partnerships, job offers and other opportunities.”

Identifii is currently in Alpha testing. He’s opened it up to about 150 people who he knows – or in my case have registered interest. It’s already seen a viral effect with 2,000 folk now using the service. I must admit at the end of the psychometric test when you say “you’ve got me dead right” – it does make you want to get your pals to give it a try. Quite infectious marketing.

Usman’s target audience is a graduate 2 years out of university or college who has just realised they have taken the wrong career path. Identifii will be there to help them get back on course.

As well as the many job sites on the web, Identifii faces competition from newcomers like Roundpegg, OneDayOneJob and BranchOut. I think Usman’s focus in English speaking Asia is a good strategy – and we might well see it transfer around the world too. As he identifies though: “The biggest challenge is building our relationships with employers to provide jobs for Identifii’s users. We currently have 25 businesses involved – and are aiming for 200 employers by summer. It’s essential we can prove we can match the new found awareness with a suitable job.”

Usman is intending to roll out a whole range of self-assessment/psychometric tests for Identifii. He wants to “democratise” this sort of testing by making them free or low price. He also intends to make them fun – so that people enjoy taking part.

I really like Identifii – and Usman’s vision of making the world a better place by getting Gen Y in to the jobs that match them! Do give Identifii and their psychometric test a try. Please do come back here and tell me what “sort of person you are”!